in _Orthodoxy_--that we
can by custom so lose our sense of reality that the only way to enjoy
and be grateful for our possessions is to lose them for a while. The
shortest way home is to go round the world. In this story of "White
Wynd" he applies the parable only to each man's life and the world he
lives in. But in _Orthodoxy_ he applies it to the human race who have
lost revealed truth by getting so accustomed to it that they no
longer look at it. And already in the Notebook he is calling the
attention of a careless multitude to "that great Empire upon which
the sun never sets. I allude to the Universe."

[* It is published in _The Coloured Lands_.]

Most of the quotations about Our Lord come in the later part of the
book: in the earlier pages he dreams that "to this age it is given to
write the great new song, and to compile the new Bible, and to found
the new Church, and preach the new Religion." And in one rather
obscure passage he seems to hint at the thought that Christ might
come again to shape this new religion.

Going round the world, Gilbert was finding his way home; the explorer
was rediscovering his native country. He himself has given us all the
metaphors for what was happening now in his mind. Without a single
Catholic friend he had discovered this wealth of Catholic truth and
he was still travelling. "All this I felt," he later summed it up in
_Orthodoxy_, "and the age gave me no encouragement to feel it. And
all this time I had not even thought of Catholic theology."

CHAPTER VI

Towards a Career

A CURIOUS LITTLE incident comes towards the end of
Gilbert's time at the Slade School. In a letter he wrote to
E. C. Bentley we see him, on the eve of his 21st birthday, being
invited to write for the _Academy_:

Mr. Cotton is a little bristly, bohemian man, as fidgetty as a
kitten, who runs round the table while he talks to you. When he
agrees with you he shuts his eyes tight and shakes his head. When he
means anything rather seriously he ends up with a loud nervous laugh.
He talks incessantly and is mad on the history of Oxford. I sent him
my review of Ruskin and he read it before me (Note. Hell) and
delivered himself with astonishing rapidity to the following effect:
"This is very good: you've got something to say: Oh, yes: this is
worth saying: I agree with you about Ruskin and about the Century:
this is good: you've no idea: if you saw some stuff: some review